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EPM: Error "Invalid Dimension: MEASURES" due to invalid time dimension

Former Member
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Hallo,

I encountered a problem while designing my data model and I hope, anyone can give me a helping hand on that.

------ General Information:

I am using BPC EPM 10.0 SP 10 .NET 3.5 / Build 8001

------ Problem:

I have set up a standard model to save some parameters for the profit centers within my planning model (no consolidation model used). These parameters will be saved on a yearly basis. So I have set up a quite simple time dimension (named SC_TIME) with only years as leaf elements and I used the basic attributes mentioned within the online documentation (e.g.: Base Period, Level, Period, Year). The dimension now looks like that:

When I build the model / cube, no errors occur during creation. However after creation I cannot connect to the model by using web report functionality. The screen just freezes after changing the model to the new one and the model navigation pane still shows the dimensions of the old model (before changing model). When I try to connect via EPM I get an error message saying "Invalid Dimension: MEASURES".

After some research I found a document How to maintain MEASURE dimension for Business Planning and Consolidation (http://www.sdn.sap.com/irj/scn/go/portal/prtroot/docs/library/uuid/b0facd7e-487f-2c10-05bc-8a569e1ba...). After checking the tables that maintain the MEASURE formulas I recognized that no entries were made for my new created model. What I did next was:

  • Created an equal model than my new one but I replaced my simple time dimension SC_TIME with the one from my planning model (named TIME - which is the standard time dimension from the ENVIRONMENTSHELL).
  • I then was able to connect to my new created model.
  • I checked the attributes and tried to apply the same values of the original TIME dimension to my own dimension SC_TIME, but it didn't help.
  • I tried to enrich the dimension SC_TIME with other attributes that are only used in the context of consolidation, but it didn't help.

------ My Questions about the TIME-Dimension:

  • How has a simple time dimension to look like if I only want entries on a yearly basis without any "roll ups" to QTD or YTD?
  • Why does the standard TIME dimension (ENVIRONMENTSHELL) gets invalid when I remove the QUARTER elements and change the hierarchy of the monthly elements to reference the <year>.TOTAL element? By invalid I mean, that I get the same EPM error (Invalid Dimension: MEASURES) with all models that were created with that adapted time dimension.

Does anyone have a hint for me about what I did wrong or how a valid time dimension has to look like? Any help would really be appreciated.

Cheers,

Gernot

Accepted Solutions (1)

Accepted Solutions (1)

Former Member
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Hi Gernot,

You can use any type of hierarchy in the time dimension. There is no limitation on that. However, you need to be careful with the measure formulas. The document you referred to is published by me only.

The standard measure formulas consider 3 levels in the time hierarchy - YEAR, QUARTER, MONTH. If the number of levels change, you need to adjust the measure formula accordingly. Since, all the data is at the year level, you dont need any measure for YTD. You just need to maintain a formula for the PERIODIC (or better use some other name) measure.

Hope this helps.

Former Member
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Hi Nilanjan,

thank you for your reply. I will try what you mentioned as soon as I get access to that table to change / add entries.

I guess the MDX statement would look something like that:

MEMBER [MEASURES].[MyMeasureName] AS [%TIME%].[LEVEL01]

or

MEMBER [MEASURES].[MyMeasureName] AS [%TIME%].CURRENTMEMBER

Would that work?

You mentioned in your document that it is sometimes necessary to maintain those formulas manually. I recognized that even if you take the original TIME dimension and remove the quarter elements and change the hierarchy of the month elements to their new parent <year>.TOTAL, the usage of that adapted dimension would cause the same error I mentioned above.

So, is it correct to say, that the BPC engine cannot interpret non-standard time dimensions and one have to maintain those measure-formulas manually every time you use a adapted dimension? Or is there a hint / trick to build those dimension correct so the BPC engine can interpret the dimension and set up the formulas automatically?

Thanks for your help so far,

Gernot

Former Member
0 Kudos

Hi Gernot,

You are absolutely right. When we create a model, it creates the measure formulas for that model. And these formulas are standard. In case of a different hierarchy, we might need to change the formula. Please note that there was no need to change the formula, if we had the hierarchy like year -> quarter -> month (the member IDs can be anything).

Hope this helps.

Former Member
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Hi Gernot,

Recently I faced some issues creating a custom measures.

Here is a interesting documentation:

http://scn.sap.com/people/robert.marshall/blog/2011/01/04/rolling-12-custom-measure-in-bpc-7x-versio...

A quite easy to mantain instead tables.

And here is the thread that I opened to solve my issue:

http://scn.sap.com/thread/3220881

Regards,

Lucas

Answers (1)

Answers (1)

former_member186338
Active Contributor
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Hi Gernot,

The formula will be very simple:

MEMBER [MEASURES].[PERIODIC] AS '[Measures].[/CPMB/SDATA]';SOLVE_ORDER=3

The proposed measure will simply use the default measure /CPMB/SDATA with the name PERIODIC. It will not depend on the Account type.

B.R. Vadim